Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season

“That’s Ruddles’s, I’d swear,” growled Browsem.

“Of course,” said my uncle. “And now, look here, Dick,” he cried, pointing to the half-burnt gun-wads lying about near a large pollard oak. “There, shin up, and look down inside this tree.”

With very little difficulty, I wonderingly climbed up some fifteen feet, by means of the low branches, which came off clayey on my hands, as though some one had mounted by that same means lately, and then I found that I could look down right through the hollow trunk, which was lighted by a hole here and there.

“That’ll do; come down,” cried my uncle. “If I’d only thought of it last night, we could have boxed the rascal up – a vagabond! keeping us racing up and down the wood, while he sat snugly in his hole, blazing away directly we were a few yards off.”

I was certainly very close to Jenny that afternoon when my uncle, whom we thought to be napping in his study, rushed into the room.

“Hurrah, Dick! Tompkins has peached, and they sent fifty pheasants up in Ruddles’s cart this morning; but the old rascal’s locked up, and – hum! That sort of thing looks pretty,” he continued, for we were certainly taken somewhat by surprise. “But, you dog,” he roared, as Jenny darted from the room, “you did not catch the scoundrel.”

However, after that morning’s take, even if a hundred pheasants had been sent in the cart, my uncle would have been plastic as clay, while, an hour afterwards, he exclaimed:

“Why, Dick, I’d almost forgotten my gout.”

Chapter Nineteen

The Spirits of the Bells

Heart-sore and spirit-weary,
Life blank, and future dreary,
Mournfully I gazed upon my fire’s golden glow,
Pondering on idle errors,
Writhing under conscience terrors,
Gloomily I murmured, with my spirits faint and low.

I had drained the golden measure,
Sipped the sweets of so-called pleasure,
Seeing in the future but a time for newer joy;
Now I found their luscious cloying,
Ev’ry hope and peace destroying,
Golden visions, brightest fancies – bitter, base alloy.

Riches, comfort spoke then vainly,
To a brain thus tinged insanely,
Wildly throbbing, aching, teeming,
Fancy-filled with hideous dreaming,
Speaking of an aimless life, a life without a goal:
While as if to chide my murmur,
Came a voice which cried, “Be firmer,
Would’st be like the beasts that perish? Think thou of thy soul.”

Starting from my chair and trembling,
Vainly to my heart dissembling,
’Twas an idle fancy that had seemed to strike my ear;
Still the words came stealing round me,
Horror in its chains had bound me;
Dripping from my aching brow, were beads of deepest fear.

Hurrying to my moonlit casement,
Throwing up the sash,
Highest roof to lowest basement
Seemed to brightly flash,
Glitt’ring white, with Winter’s dressing;
While each crystal was caressing
Purest rays that glanced around it from the moon’s pale light.
Nature slept in sweetest beauty,
Gleaming stars spoke hope and duty:
Calmer grew my aching brow, beneath the heavenly sight.

Christmas-Eve! the Christian’s morrow
Soon would dawn on joy and sorrow,
Spreading cheer and holy pleasure brightly through the land;
Whilst I, lonely, stricken-hearted,
Under bitter mem’ries smarted,
Standing like an outcast, or as one the world had banned.

Sadly to my chair returning,
By my fire still brightly burning,
Battling with the purer rays that through the window gleamed;
Like two spirits floating o’er me,
Vividly rays played before me,
Each to wrap me in its light that on my forehead streamed.

The glowing fire with warm embracing
Told of earthly, sinful racing:
Warmth and pleasure in its looks, but in its touch sharp pain;
While the moonbeams, paler, purer,
Spoke of pleasures, sweeter, surer,
Oft rejected by Earth’s sons for joys that bear a stain.

Suddenly with dread I shivered,
As the air around me quivered,
Laden with the burden of a mighty spirit-tone,
Rolling through the midnight stilly,
Borne upon the night-wind chilly,
Rushing through my chamber, where I sat in dread alone.

“Soul!” it cried, in power pealing,
“Soul!” the cry was through me stealing,
Vibrating through each fibre with a wonder-breeding might.
“Soul!” the voice was deeply roaring;
“Soul!” rang back from roof and flooring,
Booming thro’ the silence of the piercing winter night.

Now came crashing, wildly dashing,
Waves of sound in power splashing,
Ringing, swinging, tearing, scaring,
Shrieking out in words unsparing,